Dynamics of Growth, Poverty, and Inequality in Pakistan

The relationship between growth, inequality, and poverty has been a moot point. On the one hand growth is considered central or the best course to reduce poverty (e.g. World Development Report 1990) with the preconditions that access to education, health, and social services are available to all by means of other policies. On the other hand, there is a realisation that growth, inequality, and poverty relations are non-linear, complex, and path dependent in their dynamics. An important point made in this context by Kuznets (1955) was the empirical finding of an inverted U (arch) shape relationship between growth and inequality which suggested that the inequality would increase with growth in the beginning, but will decline at higher levels of growth as the benefits of growth trickle down to lower income strata. This argument has been debated since then in the literature with empirical support gathered for and against this hypothesis. Recent theoretical literature on the issue tries to find the micro-foundations of the dynamical relations between these three variables (see for example, proceedings of the 5th ABCDE Annual (World) Bank Conference on Development Economics). Institutional factors do not change in a few years while they matter in the reduction of poverty as well as in sustaining it at low levels. Hence these relationships are likely to be non-linearity and path dependent, i.e., history matters in the determination of the impact of growth on poverty, of growth on inequality, of inequality on poverty etc. Therefore an understanding of these relationships require knowledge of both the short-run as well as the long-run elasticities of poverty. The method developed by Kakwani (1993) and Kanbur (1987), make use of single survey and provides information on the short-term elasticities but remain silent about longer term relationships between poverty, growth, and inequality.

Household Division of Labor : Is There Any Escape From Traditional Gender Roles ?

The effects of women's strong investments in career and their relative positions on the household division of labor, particularly the share of male partners in household work, constitute important but somehow unaddressed issues. We use the French Time Use Survey, focusing on couples where both partners participate in the labor market, to build indicators of strong female investment in career, and look into the possible effect on the gender division of labor, particularly the male share of household work. We show that though a better relative position of the woman in the labor market increases her husband's share of household work, there is no role reversal in the division of labor.Household work, labor market, gender.

Topographies of Hate: Islamophobia in Cyberia

Islamophobia’s occurrence in any particular country has little do with the presence of Muslim; it is possible to be Islamophobic when there are virtually no Muslim around. This because the lack of Muslims is filled by the surplus of Islamophobic representations. This surplus of representations is now increasingly reliant on the internet. There are many studies reporting on Islamophobia on the internet, classifying the negative representations, the targeted acts of aggressive online behaviour (trolling) against Muslims. These studies are basically taxonomies, and they share this feature with general literature on Islamophobia, which is concerned with reporting instances of Islamophobia empirically with little time spent on its theorisation. Such an understanding of Islamophobia implies that it is simply dismissed as being a matter of prejudice, bias, and closed views. A Critical Muslim Studies understanding of Islamophobia developed initially in the collected volume Thinking Through Islamophobia (2010), and then subsequent publications shift the focus away positivism to decolonial discourse theory. Using decolonial discourse theory, this study will how online Islamophobia is not just a distortion of Islam, or hatred of Muslims but rather it main vectors for denying Muslim political consciousness

Openness and Growth in South Asia

The determinants of economic growth have long been a subject for economists, historians and sociologists. Traditionally, economic growth has been attributed to physical factors of production like labor and capital but, in the past few decades, there has been a search going on for the part of growth that remains unexplained when the physical factors of production are accounted for. At least two third of economic growth cannot be attributed to the physical factors of production. Several other factors contributing to economic growth have been highlighted in the recent past. Such factors include human capital, increasing returns to scale and openness. Openness of the economy is thought to be an important part of the equation of growth and there are a large number of studies and estimation using a large number of cross-sectional datasets. Time series models have been applied to single country analysis in South Asia. However, in the present paper, focusing on the three largest economies of South Asia, the authors apply, along with several other models, a panel data model to a panel dataset of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh for the period of 1980 to 2008. The results confirm that openness played an important part in the economic growth of South Asia during the period 1980-2008

Theoretical study on the efficiency of utilization of nanoclay-CFRP composite materials in the root area of wind turbine blades

In this study, theoretical calculations were performed to determine the most efficient utilization of nanoclays added as reinforcement for CFRP composite materials used for wind turbine blade manufacture. Four different V39 blade models were created, and numerical simulations by FEA were performed. Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymers (GFRP), whole model made of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymers/nanoclay (2%) (CFRPN2), Hybrid Glass and Carbon/nanoclay (2%) (HGCN2) and Hybrid Glass and Carbon/nanoclay (5%) (HGCN5). The targeted part was the joining zone between the root and the blade. The most important finding to emerge from this study is that the modest addition of nanoclay (2%) with carbon fiber reinforced polymer leads to a significant stiffer blade, with a minimal deflection, about 70% lower than GFRP. Furthermore, the HGCN2 model is considered to be safer as it has a lower stress concentration than others (52.84 kN/m2). It can be considered that the probability of failure of the entire root area will be decreased if nanoclay-CFRP hybrid blades are used, yielding higher durability and lower overall costs. These findings contribute to decisions related to materials selection, structural, aerodynamic design and layup schedule choice

Women's relative position and the division of household work: A study of French couples

International audienceThis paper studies the effect of women's relative position in the labour market on the division of household work for French couples. Taking into account that household decisions are taken simultaneously, the paper provides empirical evidence that women's relative position in the labour market with reference to her partner influences the distribution of household work. We find that men's share of household work increases with his partner's better relative position in the labour market. But women's better position, relative to the average of her "type" has a less significant impact upon the distribution of household work within the household. Although the gap in household work decreases with the woman being in a better relative position, we never observe a role reversal: whatever their situation in the labour market may be, women always have in charge the largest share of household work

Women's career and couples' time allocation: how do they share tasks when women invest strongly in the labor market?

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The Division of Labour within the household: Is There any Escape from Traditional Gender Roles?

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